Medicine confirms a case of swine flu in a farm worker in Lleida

The alert was declared on January 29 when health authorities reported a possible case of swine flu A(H1N1) variant (A(H1N1)v). Earlier, on November 25 last year, the patient began to develop symptoms such as cough with mucopurulent sputum, fever, general malaise and myalgia. Over the next three weeks, he visited the clinic three times. A chest X-ray showed no signs of pneumonia and he was diagnosed with bronchitis.

But on December 12, a sample of nasal and oropharyngeal exudate tested positive for a case of influenza A, the subtype of which could not be determined. When this sample was analyzed in the following days at the Catalan reference center and at the National Institute of Microbiology, the result showed that it was swine flu.

According to the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC), only 73 cases of A(H1N1)v virus infection have been reported worldwide since 2011. More than half of them are registered in China (42), the rest are in the USA (nine), the Netherlands (six), Germany (five), Switzerland (three), Spain (two), Denmark (two). and Canada (one). The previous case reported in Spain occurred in 2022.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), transmission of the virus occurs in three ways: when an infected pig (or infected person) coughs or sneezes, and droplets containing the virus become airborne and inhaled. another person or another pig; also by touching an object containing the virus and then touching your eyes, nose or mouth; or through aerosols containing the virus. The virus is not transmitted by eating pork

Most infections caused by influenza virus variants cause mild illness in people, but severe illness, including hospitalization and death, can also occur.